To Kill a Mockingbird: The Final Chapter
by The-Man-in-Blue
Summary: A re-written version of the book's ending because I was unhappy with it.


Next morning Jem woke up and was furious to discover that he'd missed most everything that had happened last night. He swore not to speak to me for as long as I lived, but by noon of the day after he acknowledged my presence with grunts. He was moody and sullen for a few days; Doc Reynolds had put a cast on his arm, and he didn't like it much. He said he itched terribly, and was always scratching at the cast. Atticus would tell him often it wasn't good to scratch so much at it.

"I can't help it, Atticus, sir, it itches," said Jem helplessly, as he scratched at the plaster all the more.

"Well, son, soon you won't even notice it," Atticus told him. "It'll feel like a second skin to you."

I fancied the idea of Jem shedding his cast like a snakeskin, but until then he'd wear his nails out with all that scratching. Something Jem did like, though, was that he stayed home from school for a week until he got used to his cast. I resented this deeply, and carried a grudge for a great while. It got to be pretty lonely walking home from school alone. At times I would glance up at the windows of the Radley place as I walked by, hoping to get a glimpse of Boo, but I never saw anything.

We never did see anything of the Ewells again. Word came through Miss Stephanie that they'd all been sent to an Orphan Home for Lost Boys and Girls away up north, near the state line. Though I can't say any of the town folk were sorry to see them go.

Jem started paying less attention to football and more to the law. He'd constantly beg Atticus to go with him to work. Atticus said that Jem would be bored out of his mind before an hour was up, and who would play with Scout in the meanwhile? Jem started to ask all sorts of questions to Atticus at dinner, about state legislature and bar exams and things like that. He acted like he wanted to become a lawyer, but then started going on about becoming the governor.

That summer we got just about the hottest weather we'd ever had. Aunt Alexandra was prone to heatstrokes, but Atticus told us the family had had enough bad publicity lately so we kept quiet about it. She spent most days rocking on the porch, fanning herself. Atticus told us the heat was affecting the entire nation, and it was something called a heat wave and ought to die out presently. He was right, of course. The heat wave died out sometime in September, though it was perfectly awful having to go to school in such conditions. I thought about quitting lots of times, but Atticus told me that if Jem could slug it out with an arm that was recently healed from a breaking, then so could I, and so I went. Third grade wasn't so bad.

One night it got too hot in my room to sleep. I stumbled into the living room and crawled into Atticus's lap, where he sat reading the paper. He put it down, covering me like a blanket. "Didn't I tell you you're getting too big for this?" he said.

"Yes, sir, but it's too hot in my room to sleep," I said.

Atticus shifted the paper so he could continue reading. "Have you heard the latest news in Russia? Sixteen men were accused of intending to kill the leaders of the government, and the only evidence produced was the confessions of the accused themselves. It says here, 'In his final words to the court one of the accused asks, "Who will believe a single word we say? Who will believe us, we who stand before the court as counter-revolutionary bandits, as allies of fascism, of the Gestapo? Indeed who could believe those confessions?'"

"Atticus," I said when he stopped. "What does all that mean?"

"Well, Scout," he said, putting down the paper again. "These men have already been found guilty by the Russian government. They are only holding this trial to make the accusation and the verdict to the public as an impressive example and as a warning to other would-be troublemakers."

I finally understood. "Atticus," I asked him, "isn't that sort of like Tom Robinson?" When there was no response I continued, "You knew he would be found guilty, didn't you? But you still defended him. They only did the trial to humiliate him, didn't they? And that's why you defended him. You were sticking up for him, weren't you, Atticus?"

I looked up at him, and was surprised to see his eyes moist. "Why, yes, Scout, you've got it all figured out," he said. "I guess you're not so little anymore. You're growing up."

I smiled. "Yes sir, and soon I'll be too big to sleep in your lap. You said so yourself." I leaned up and kissed his cheek, then snuggled back down, feeling safe and warm in his strong embrace.

* * *

Time wore on, and before we knew it, it was 1941. America had just entered World War II. We were stubborn at first. Atticus said we didn't want to get involved in European politics. That changed after Pearl Harbor. The war stirred up a hornet's nest, and even Maycomb was affected. Mr. Link Deas moved off to the city to invest in factory jobs, on account of there was a labor shortage in field workers.

Both Jem and Dill were drafted into the Army. Atticus managed to dodge the draft. "I've told you many times, son, I'm just too old," he said the day Jem left. That was the saddest day of my life, having to tell Jem and Dill goodbye.

Jem spent a few months in basic training before joining the Western Task Force under the command of General George S. Patton. He wrote to us as often as he could, but we sometimes wouldn't get his letters for a while. His letters encouraged us because he often told us of how well the war was going, and of all the victories the Western Task Force had secured. "If they are winning the battles in Europe as easily as the battles over here in North Africa," he wrote once, "then I'll be back in Maycomb before you can count to ten."

Dill was shipped off to England. We wouldn't see him around Maycomb for a long time, not till years after the war was over. Then he'd come home and tell us tales of his wartime experiences, paratrooping down onto the beaches of Normandy on D-Day, or capturing German-occupied bridges so the rest of the army could cross them. Course, being Dill Harris, it was hard to tell what parts of his story were true and which were fake.

Jem and Dill were still on our minds at home during the war, but we had a lot of work to do ourselves. We saved fat drippings from cooking to make soap, and a neighborhood scrap drive collected scrap copper and brass for ammunition. Milkweed was harvested by children for lifejackets. Many of my schoolmates were dropping out like flies and landing defense jobs, lured by patriotism, adulthood, and money. I would have joined them had Atticus not encouraged me to continue my education. The war would be over eventually, he said, and I would need job skills for the future. So I stayed in school.

Calpurnia left several years later. She told us she had taken a blue-collar job up north. The day she left was probably the second saddest day of my life. She was the only mother I had ever really known. Atticus was also deeply affected by her leaving, and was sorry to see her go. Though Aunt Alexandra didn't show it, I suspected that she was, too.

Later we heard that Jem had been transferred to the Third Army, and fought all over Europe before the war ended. The whole town turned out to see him when he returned. He was a hero, they called him. I was never more proud to be his sister. Dill had spent some time in New York and Washington, D.C. before coming back to Maycomb to visit Miss Stephanie. He had a fiancé when he returned, and it made me sad, though Aunt Alexandra tried to console me when she said that childhood romances never worked out. Besides, she said, Dill's family had an exaggerating streak about them, and it wouldn't do for a Finch woman to marry off to a Harris.

Jem worked hard at the law once he got back, and eventually got a seat on the Alabama legislature. He fought long and hard over unfair bills, and he was a hard pusher for black rights. This made him somewhat unpopular in the government, but he could always count on the Finches' support. I knew that Tom Robinson's trial had affected him deeply; it had affected all of us. He told me later that it was his duty to try and make the world a better place for all mankind, and he could only hope to try and carry on what Atticus had started in that courtroom in Maycomb County.


End file.
